Gay Pride
by Dibsthe1
Summary: Dib comes out as gay and goes to his first ever Gay Pride parade. Believing homosexuality is the fastest way to destroy human civilization, Zim heads for the very same parade. Yes, this IS a joke... APRIL FOOLS!


** Gay Pride **

One piece of pizza remained on the platter. Still working the previous slice into her face, Gaz glared at Dib. That had always intimidated him before into leaving it for her.

Now, however, Dib leaned over the table and gazed right back into her eyes, silently counting the seconds. As she inevitably did these days, Gaz finally looked away in disgust. It had taken only eight seconds this time, Dib noted. Either she was finally learning that she couldn't outstare him any more, or he was getting still better at this.

For years, Gaz had been snarling that everything Dib said made her "sick," but all of Dib's paranormal spiels put together had been small potatoes compared to his latest revelation. In fact, Dib now told himself, Gaz probably wished she could turn back the clock and return to those days when that was the worst thing about him she could think of.

"Thanks Gaz!"

"Shut up or I'll... "

Dib leaned right over the table towards her, dipping his chin as he tilted his head to one side. Part of him hated feeding such a ridiculous stereotype, but pushing her buttons was too much fun for him to stop doing it. Batting his eyes coquettishly, he lisped, "Or you'll do whaaat to me, dear thith-ther?"

"FAGGOT!" Gaz shrieked, throwing the last bite of her pizza at him and looking like she was about to throw up. "GO TO HELL! AND GET SCREWED UP THE ASS BY... UGGGGGHH!!! NEVER MIND!!"

Gaz leaped to her feet, stormed upstairs and hurled her door shut right before thrash metal blasted out at a furious volume. Dib

reached out and picked up the last slice of pizza before settling smugly back into his chair with it.

As he blissfully bit into the tasty wedge, a huge smirk stretched across his face. This was getting to be almost too easy! Still, considering all she used to put him through over this very thing, a slice of pizza obtained this way definitely did taste better than any other. As he savored it, Dib found himself once more reflecting on all the ways his life had recently, and very suddenly, changed.

----

Dib had always known he didn't fit in with the others. Something he could not define had always stood between himself and his classmates, and even his most strenuous efforts to make friends had been in vain. Indeed, the more he tried, the worse things had seemed to get. Even after saving them time and again from that menace from outer space, each time they had rejected him anew. Speaking of that menace from outer space...

One day not long before, he had sat down and taken a cool, detached look at all the accumulated evidence. Before long, Dib concluded that despite all the alien's bombastic bragging, Zim was actually quite the klutz, and would probably require no more than regular monitoring. Zim was perhaps the only creature in the skool who even approached him in intelligence, but as Dib had learned only too well, being intelligent was one thing; being respected was quite another.

The Speech, the one he had been saving for the moment when someone asked him about Zim, was still stored away in his brain unused. He had yearned so much, for so long, to say it without ever getting the chance to do so that he wondered if he still said it in his sleep. "There are some dangerous creatures out there, and they're coming here. He's just the first one. They want to destroy everyone in the universe who is different from them, and they want everyone in the universe to do as they say. What makes them most scary is that they believe that they are right to do this. There are a lot of them, yes, but we can all stick together, and we don't have to surrender."

----

Dib began reading the university newspaper as soon as he knew the university had one. One week the paper ran an editorial on homophobia, an article that touched something so deep inside Dib that he hadn't even known it was there. Toward the end of the semester, the paper ran a Gay and Lesbian Supplement, and from that week onward, Dib's life would never again be the same.

Suddenly, it all made sense, and Dib loved nothing more than for things to make sense. Dib went right to the newspaper office to present his compliments in person, and by the time he left he was its newest member. Before long, Dib would write an article about being misunderstood, about scorn, rejection, and humiliation, things he knew all too well. It was an article that got picked up by the Features Exchange of the University Press and was reprinted in university papers across the country.

The editor of the newspaper, in fact, was gay himself, and gladly pointed out all the gay-safe and gay-friendly gathering places. It didn't take Dib long to find his crowd and with it, acceptance on a scale he had never dared to hope existed. It felt like coming home, really and truly coming home, and he wondered what had taken him so long to realize this about himself.

Being popular and well-liked was a new feeling, but it was one that Dib could easily get used to. Before long he knew which gyms were gay friendly and knew which were the gay bars and bookstores. Dib even joined the campus drama group, and when they put on the play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that spring, he had auditioned for it and won the part of Brick.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family, and being surrounded by people who refused to see the truth even when it stared them in the face, Dib had been preparing for this role all his life without knowing it. Every performance sold out and received a standing ovation. Everyone who saw it, including an English prof notorious for arguing at the drop of a hat that Tennessee Williams had deliberately left Brick's sexuality ambiguous, walked out of the theater completely convinced that the actor who played Brick could look straight as an arrow, and Brick still could not be anything else BUT gay.

Finally, Dib decided it was time to start being being himself when he was at home too, and to come out to his own family. He figured his home situation couldn't get any worse.

He told them both one evening after supper, right before he was to leave for a camping weekend with the drama group. If the worst happened, he would have somewhere to go for that night at least. He told them he had just figured this out about himself, that this was just the way he was, and that he loved them as much as ever and hoped this wouldn't change anything between them.

For a long moment the image of his father on the hoverscreen didn't say anything; finally he simply looked down and said, "My poor, insane, gay son."

To her credit, Gaz also regarded him the same as she ever did... which, Dib thought with a chuckle, meant she could be the biggest homophobe who ever lived without Dib ever knowing it.

Homophobic though she was, though, she was actually treating him better these days. Whenever Gaz beat Dib up before,

everybody seemed to think something funny had just happened. But now that Dib was openly gay, if she beat him up NOW he could charge her with a hate crime so fast that even HER video game dazed head would spin. She knew it, too.

Dib finished the pizza and licked the grease from his fingers. Ah, life was good. At long last, Dib's life was very good.

- - - - - - -

Zim and Gir sat on the couch watching television. Or rather, Zim sat on the couch watching television. Gir soon got bored because the Scary Monkey Show wasn't on, so he jumped off the couch and began to play. Gir played by racing around and around the room, including the walls and the ceiling.

"Whee-ee-ee! Hee hee hee!" Gir squealed, as he now spun around and around, holding his head still.

"Quiet, Gir!" Zim snapped. Something interesting was on the television.

"Looka me, Master!" Gir whirled around, crashing into things as he did so. "I'm SPINNINNNNG!"

Zim leaned forward on the couch, straining his antennae toward the television. The inferior human on the screen had just screamed, "Ahr civiliZAtion is being deSTROYed! Even NOW! As I SPEAK!"

"VICTORY FOR ZI-II-IIIM!" Zim howled. His plan was working! Well, of course it was working; he was ZIM! The pitiful humans's helpless panic at realizing how doomed he was, well, that was something Zim just had to hear for himself!

The human's hair was slicked tightly back over his head, and he was wearing a suit that looked just a bit too small. He held up a book, a thick black book with a white mark on it that consisted of two intersecting lines, and jabbed a finger at it.

For such a pathetically simple image, nowhere near as intricate as even the one-eyed Irken Invader insignia, this symbol sure had a powerful hold on the humans. The tallest building in this neighborhood had one just like it, and the humans showed a ridiculous amount of respect for certain people who wore one, no matter how tall either of them was.

The human on the television continued, "My friennnds... mah mission today is this... I am heah to tellyewwwww... about a graaaave THREAT!! t'ah sasi'ty... a STAB at the HAHT... of the very mo'al fibah of ah commun'ty... "

Gir giggled as he fell down, stood up and promptly fell down again.

"I said quiet Gir!"

"YES MASTER!" Gir shouted before giggling again at how much the room was still spinning around. Zim leaned forward still more; unfortunately for him, he had no ears to cup his hands over. It didn't make it any easier that this human's speech patterns were so peculiar; no human Zim had ever met talked anything like that, not even the ones who came out of the buildings with those same crossed lines on them.

"... MIEFRIENNNNNS... I am talking abaht... "

Gir got up and began to spin around once again, giggling even more than before.

"GIR!! ZIM COMMANDS YOU TO BE QUIET!!"

"Yes, Master! Hee hee hee... "

"... sumthang that will de-STROAH EVAHTHANNG that Amer'ca holds deah an' close t' its hahhht... "

"Whee-ee-ee-ee!!" Gir crashed into the wall beside the couch and clattered to the floor in a fit of laughter.

Without taking his eyes off the TV screen, Zim reached into his pak and pulled out a piece of filthy Earth monies with the number 50 on it. He gave it to Gir with strict instructions to go to the last supermarket on the other side of town, spend every last monie on bubble gum, and not come back until he had finished chewing every last piece of it.

"Okiedokie!" Gir grabbed the paper and pulled on his dog suit before running for the door and slamming it behind him.

With the babbling robot out of the way, Zim focused on the television with everything he had, hungering to hear more.

The human on the TV paused, and Zim hoped he hadn't missed all the best parts. The human's frown deepened still further; then he pointed a shaking finger at the camera and spat out each syllable with the most profound loathing imaginable.

"HO! MO! _ SECKSH_ YOO - AL - I - TAHHHH!"

Why, this said nothing at all about Zim! Zim blinked twice, first in disbelief, then in outrage. Destroying civilization was the job of ZIM! No inferior earth stink pig smelly worm baby was going to do this before ZIM! He... he was ZIM!

Then what was this... this "Ho-mo-SECKSH-ualitah"? Zim wondered. His eyes narrowed.

The man on the TV, now shaking and red in the face, proceeded to paint a ghastly, horrific word picture of a world in total ruin. Every sort of depravity and licentiousness, total amorality and rampaging disease, perverse promiscuity and promiscuous perversity on a scale unmatched even by the worst excesses of Ancient Rome, would maraud the earth unchecked. Nobody would trust or love anyone else, all families would dissolve and all children would be abandoned to indescribable abuses at the

hands of the "Ho! Mo! SECKSH! Uals!"

Why, this would be even better than an all-out nuclear war! By the time Gir, with strings of dusty bubble gum all over him, reappeared at the door, the program had ended and Zim was beside himself with eagerness and anticipation.

Whatever this "ho-mo-SECKSH-ualitah" was, Zim knew this much. If it was as dangerous to humans as all that, he had to get his hands on it... a LOT of it.

- - - - - - -

Zim's investigations consisted of taking Gir for a walk like any other normal earth dog, going up to random people on the street, and glancing suspiciously in all directions right before screaming out, "Are you a 'homoseckshual'? TELL ME-EE-EEE!!"

Things weren't going too well. Too often, as soon as he mentioned the word, he got laughed at, called names, or chased away by one or more angry, fist-swinging inferior human pig smellies. If it was a big, tough looking guy whose services he could have really used, flying away on Gir's back was the only thing that saved him from getting beaten up. If the humans were this scared of it, this "homoseckshualitah" had to be powerful and terrifying indeed.

Well, when he had found these "homoseckshuals" and finished using them as a stepping stone to conquering the world, they would see who would be chasing who!

"I AM ZI-II-IIIM!"

- - - - - - -

Dib couldn't wait to take part in his first Gay Pride parade, and to help the time pass more quickly he helped out every way he could think of. He sold advertising to mainstream newspapers and magazines, he helped out on the parade organizing committee, and helped the drama group to build a float complete with an arch suggesting a stage.

He also put up posters advertising the event.

So busy was Dib, in fact, that he spent less time than ever watching Zim, and to Zim this was intolerable. He had to find the "homoseckshuals," and fast. THEN he would teach the Dib to dare ignore ZIM!

Now, as Zim was heading home from another day of trying to find the "homoseckshuals" (who were no doubt all hiding because they had heard the mighty ZIM was looking for them!!) he noticed insignificant human papers on the insignificant human street poles. They were too insignificant for Zim to take any notice of, beyond noticing that they were there.

But when Zim turned his head and saw these papers were being put up by none other than the Dib, that changed everything.

What filthy human lies was the Dib was spreading about him?

And now Dib was rounding the corner to do down another street, still pretending he hadn't even seen ZIM!

Zim raced for the closest telephone pole which had a paper, and looked closely to find out what additional filth the Dib was befouling the already filthy earth street pole with. What he read made both his contact lenses pop out.

"Gay... "

GAY! That was one of the words the inferior human wormbabies called him when he asked if they were among the "homoseckshuals"!

Once he began to recover from his astonishment, Zim read the rest of the poster.

"Gay Pride Parade!

Starting at 2 pm

From Friends Bar to Reflections Cabaret

Date, July 21, 2007

'may models mingle with mechanics, plumbers dance with princes'

All welcome!"

So the Dib was ONE of them! Zim could feel his hands clenching into fists at the thought that he, ZIM, would actually need the help of... of the Dib... for his next step to conquering this filthy ball of earth scum! Zim had NOT figured on this at all.

July 21, 2 pm, Friends Bar. Zim would be there. Oh, Zim would most definitely be there...

- - - - - - -

July 21 finally arrived. Since the morning hours, Zim had watched from the roof of Friends Bar, waiting for the "homoseckshuals" to arrive below.

Humans began to gather long before 2pm, but Zim knew he would have no trouble spotting the big dangerous "homoseckshuals" in the gathering crowd. However, as more and more humans showed up, even Zim started to get a little concerned... just a little. None of these were the "homoseckshuals;" they couldn't be. They weren't destroying anything! They were all happy and carefree and wearing bright, colorful clothes, sporting costumes of every conceivable description, and carrying signs with those weirdly colored inferior earth rainbows on them. It was disgusting.

Finally, flatbed trucks began to arrive and Zim leaped to his feet; surely the "homoseckshuals" were driving these! To his utter disappointment, however, the trucks DIDN'T plow right into the crowd; in fact, the humans were so glad that they began to decorate them! Zim grunted and once more sat down to wait.

When the trucks were covered with these decorations, they began to line up, and when they had just about finished doing this, cheerful, bracing music began to play. It didn't take long for this buoyant mood to sweep through the crowd; in minutes everybody was laughing, singing, and dancing to the music. Several of the humans were naked, or nearly so, except for clusters of colorful balloons; some had even brought their dogs, although none of THESE inferior earth dogs, Zim observed, could dance on their hind legs or spin their heads like Gir!

At long last, the trucks began to depart one by one. "GO! GO!! LE-EE-EEEVE!" Zim hissed, waving his arms frantically to shoo them all away. Would the foolish humans never leave?? It was just about 2pm, time for the "homoseckshuals" to appear!

And where on this inferior planet WAS the Dib? Was he ever going to get here to help ZIM? Zim's eyes narrowed as he peered down at the crowd even more intently, but he couldn't see the Dib anywhere.

Zim was now quivering with outrage. Did not the Dib human put up posters to this very event right in front of Zim? How could that have been anything other than a secret message to Zim that he was willing to help him destroy the world with this dangerous "Ho! Mo! SECKSH! Ualitah"?

As the humans spread out, Zim suddenly spotted what he had been looking for. Looking for that black trench coat had almost caused him to miss the Dib, but there was no mistaking that distinctive hair scythe.

Deploying his spider legs, Zim scampered down the wall and raced to catch up with the Dib. WIth costumes all around him, he passed through the crowd completely unnoticed.

- - - - - - -

The day of the parade was graced with the most sparklingly sunny weather anyone could have hoped for. Now that all the work of organizing was behind them, and the actual parade was about to begin, people could finally relax and enjoy themselves.

Dib took one end of the banner he had helped to paint, a banner reading, "It's in our makeup!" and joyfully began to march in front of the drama club float. All around him were people in such such simple yet creative costumes that he wondered why he didn't think of them himself. Other than that, though, just leaving off his trench coat was costume enough for him; while he had missed it at first, this new light, airy feeling was undeniably liberating. This was even better than Halloween. Nothing scary or horrible was attached to it, just acceptance and love.

Suddenly, a shrill shriek rent the air as someone he hadn't seen much lately jumped right in front of him.

"DIB-STINK!" Zim screamed at the top of his squeedlyspooch, waving his arms madly.

"Zim?" Dib gasped, almost dropping his end of the banner in his surprise. Usually it was he who was chasing the alien; what was Zim doing here now?

- - - - - - -

Looking up, Zim now saw the signs at close quarters; finally he could actually read them.

They said things like, "Gay is okay," "Hey! We're Gay!" and "Gay Day 2007." Gay This, Gay That...

So these WERE the "homoseckshuals" after all! Every single one of these inferior human wormbaby scum in front of, behind, and on both sides of him was a "homoseckshual." Here at last, here at long last, was all the "Ho! Mo! SECKSH! Ualitah!" Zim would ever need.

Still, Zim couldn't hide his disappointment that they didn't seem as formidable as the shaking, red-faced human on the TV had told him they were, and because of that, he had almost missed them. The human on the TV had not only LIED, he had LIED... to ZIM! He would pay. Oh, HOW he would PAY...

But right now, that didn't matter. Directly in front of him stood the Dib... and the Dib was one of these "homoseckshuals."

Had Zim said, "I need your help," or "Let's form an alliance," or something like that, it might have gone differently... for a little while. However, Zim's PAK, his military training, his sheer contempt for humanity, and his longstanding rivalry with Dib all strictly forbade that.

You're lucky I even made it at all!"

Zim's eyes now settled on the stick in Dib's hands, and his antennae flattened back like the ears of an angry cat.

"ZIM will take over the world before YOU will, DIB!" Zim spat out the word. He rushed forward and tried to snatch the stick holding up the banner out of Dib's hands.

He may have been incompetent, but he was still the same Zim, still talking about taking over the world. Dib's fingers curled tighter when Zim reached for the stick he held, and the two briefly scuffled over it until Dib finally shook Zim free.

"Zim? You're acting even weirder than usual... and that's pretty bad."

The Irken stood glaring at Dib. How DARE the Dib stand in the way of Zim's mission!

"You can't destroy civilization without MEEE!"

Puzzled looks began appearing on the faces of the people close enough to see, if not hear, what was going on.

"'Take over the world'?"

"'Destroy civilization'?"

"Is that what he said?"

"I dunno; what DID he say?"

"No, Zim, we're not trying to 'destroy civilization'," Dib said, rolling his eyes. This yet again. He'd had the misfortune to be watching TV a few weeks ago when that idiotic program had come on, and he had endured it just until he found the remote. Even "Barney" would have been less of an insult to his intelligence than that.

"Yes you are! Even your own kind are scared of you!"

"That's THEIR problem," Dib retorted, keeping a firm grip on his temper, something he was finally learning to do.

Trying to defuse the growing tension, the guy holding up the other side of Dib's banner spoke up. "Hey man, great alien costume!" He gave Zim a thumb up.

"He really is an - " The words began to come out of Dib automatically from sheer force of habit, before he decided it wasn't worth it. Not today, not today of all days. He couldn't risk losing something this precious as soon as he'd found it.

"He's an... ? He's an... what?"

"He's an... a nutty classmate of mine. Don't mind him."

Zim was now waving his arms as if he was the parade's official leader. "All you Ho! Mo! SECKSH! Uals! Follow MEEE!" he screamed as loudly as he could. "We will NOW! Proceed with Operation Impending Doom 2, and DESTROY EVERYTHING on this filthy, inferior planet! All in the name of the Irken Empire!! Those of you who helped me the most, I will kill the most painlessly!"

"We're not out to do that, man" somebody else said, with the air of someone who had said this all too often already. He wore a T-shirt with a peace symbol on it and was carrying a bucket of rainbow colored condoms.

"'MAN'? I'M NORMAL!" screamed Zim.

"So are we," a woman on a bike on the other side of Zim said evenly.

"I'm more normal than you are!"

Needless to say, this did not go over well AT ALL. There was a sharp collective intake of breath as every back within Zim's shouting distance stiffened instantly.

"Zim, this could get really ugly, really fast," Dib warned the alien. "For EVERYBODY'S sake, including your own, just go home alr- "

Once more, the hysterical competitiveness he had always had with Dib now reared its head once again, and at the very idea that Dib was taking over the world first, Zim screamed in outrage. "THE DIIIB CANNOT TAKE OVER THE WORLD BEFORE ZI-II-IIIM!! I AM ZI-II-IIIM!!"

Dib sighed. If he didn't know it before, he knew it now. He didn't have to do a thing; Zim's sheer incompetence would take care of the situation for him.

The drama group at his back, as well as several others, now turned on Zim, and the way they did so reminded Dib of what had happened the first day Zim had shown up in class.

"You think just because someone's different, you can call them dangerous!"

"We're ALL normal!"

Zim tried again. "I have a MISSION!" he blurted. "The Dib is interfering with the MISSION of ZI-II-IIIM!!"

At the word "mission," the atmosphere, tense as it already was, became positively icy, a chill to which Zim was of course completely oblivious.

"You're one of those fundamentalists, aren't you?"

"Leave us alone. NO ONE is going to 'destroy the world,' and we weren't doing anything to you!"

Shaking their heads, with disgusted looks on their faces, they turned their backs on Zim and continued walking. They were willing to accept just about anybody and everybody, but this did not extend to those who clearly did not accept them.

Wth the wall of people blocking him, Zim couldn't see anything but their backs. He rose up on his spider legs, but the crowd kept going and paid him no further attention. This was torture to Zim. He ran alongside the parade, screaming, "LOOK AT ZIM!

ZIM IS OVER HERE!! LOOK!! LOOK!! LOOK AT ZIM!! LOOK!! LOOK!! I AM ZI-II-IIM!" 

For all Zim's shrieking, everyone ignored him.

Dib could not suppress a sigh of sympathy. He knew what _ that _ felt like...

Scattered mutterings rippled through the crowd. "Why do they do that to us?"

"We're not hurting anybody."

"We certainly weren't hurting him!"

"Did you say he was a classmate of yours?" the guy holding the other side of the drama club banner asked Dib. "What's his problem anyway?"

There were still times when this could still surprise Dib. The novelty had not yet worn off being liked, let alone having anybody actually ask him what he thought. It took Dib a moment to reply. "There ARE some dangerous people out there. He's just one of them.

"They want to destroy everyone who is different from them, and they want everyone to do as they say. What makes them most scary is that they believe they are right to do this. There are a lot of them, yes, but we can all stick together, and we don't have to surrender."

Everyone who heard this nodded. Dib must be wise indeed, if he could condense something this complex into so few words which covered all the important points so well.

Throughout the parade, word of what he had said spread, and people kept coming up to pat his back and shake his hand.

Dib could not push the smile from his face. It didn't happen in quite in the way he had intended, but people had finally listened to what he had to say about Zim.

Being respected was also something Dib could get used to very easily.

The end.

(A/N) A... PRIL... FOOOOL!! HAHAHAHAHA!!! Me? Do zdder?? "Wouldn't it be funny if that were true?" - Brick, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

It looked like it for a while though, didn't it? But I hope you all know me better than that by now.

I hope (some of) you enjoyed it, because this is the closest to that particular mutation that I will ever go... EVER.

I've been saying for a while now that Dib could be floridly gay and Zim could be specifically out to investigate homosexuality... and they STILL would NOT end up together.

While it does explore similar themes, this is emphatically NOT a zdder. If ONE (1) person tries to claim that it is, it's coming down immediately. Once more: This is NOT a zdder.

To all those I scared to death, my most sincere apologies! To all those I disappointed, my

HEAVENS LOOK AT THE TIME!! Bye all!


End file.
